How to remember your online passwords

If you are like me, you enter into each new online experience with the best intentions and the hope that this time the password you choose will somehow stick to your cerebral cortex in a way that all others in the past have not. It is an digital dichotomy as I have created countless spreadsheets chronicling my creativity as each new site seems to demand a greater level of ingenuity reflecting the world of usernames and passwords seemingly created to force my mind through a journey much like Alice through her looking glass in an effort to “protect my identity” and in turn systematically engender a level of frustration and a string of expletives the next time I endeavor to log on. My alpha/numeric musings, an array of hundreds of other log on algorithms I promised I would safely tuck away away on some random scrap of paper or lime green Post It and then immediately misplace under a stack of other said pass codes, passwords, coupon codes and random notes to self that at the time seemed marginally earth shattering and yet ended up in that wasteland on my desk loving known as the “graveyard”… where so many bright ideas go to inevitably live out their final days in anonymity.

Alas, my latest bright idea may be the key to my online success and yours and save all of us more than a few minutes, hours, days and even months as we plug in variations on a theme hoping to access our online life. What is the answer to the password debacle? I believe the it rests in a new set of questions that not only will allow access but leap over the generic and uninspired “security questions” and speak to our real lives.

What is the name of your least favorite best friend?

In what decade did you fully abandon all hope of true happiness?

At what age did you realize Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were all lies and you could never trust your parents again?

In what city did you first discover you never wanted to live with a roommate again?

What is the day, date and time you realized Netflix no longer had anything worthwhile to watch?

In what city did you feel your youthful spontaneity for life being sucked from your soul?

What is the name of your least favorite relative?

At what age did you flush your first pet goldfish down the toilet?

What was the first name of the person who gave you your first STD?

What is the handle on your EX’s Instagram account

While some might say the above questions are a bit harsh… I would counter with the argument that in a age where one’s digital identity is locked behind a multi-faceted veil of secrecy we must come together as a society and advocate for change. The key to traveling the Digital Highway is often far less complex than we make it and as such perhaps the real success rest with a simple truth. You can’t stay connected if you can’t get online.